“It’s Just a Dupatta” and Other Lies: The Rebranding of South Asian Culture
20th April 2025
Every few months, TikTok explodes with debates around cultural appropriation. Scarves become "new accessories," turmeric turns into a "superfood discovery," and someone somewhere calls chai "chai tea" without a shred of irony. South Asian aesthetics trend online while South Asian people are told their cultures are too loud, too tacky, too much. And the cycle continues.
But what happens when an entire culture is stripped of credit, rebranded, and sold back with a Western label? What does it mean when centuries of tradition are reduced to Instagram aesthetics? More importantly, why does it keep happening?
The Dupatta: A Fabric of History
This isn’t just about a piece of fabric. Dupattas have existed since the Indus Valley Civilization around 2500 BCE, evolving through eras and rulers, standing as a symbol of dignity, womanhood, and cultural identity in South Asia. They carry the memory of revolutions and resistance, of ceremonies and stories.
This fabric has seen temples, weddings, protests, and wars. It holds memory, strength, and tradition. But Western fashion strips it of all that. The dupatta becomes just a trend, renamed as a scarf or veil, sold without context, credit, or care. Brands profit while brown women are erased from the narrative, their culture treated like aesthetic, not heritage.
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In Padmaavat, a film inspired by the real-life Rajput queen Rani Padmavati, Deepika Padukone leads a procession of women draped in dupattas into the flames of jauhar - the fabric symbolising dignity, resistance, and the sacred legacy of South Asian womanhood.
Scarf dresses and Dupatta-inspired designs from popular Western brands, marketed as “Scandinavian”
When brands like Oh polly, Reformation, H&M rebrand these garments as "Scandinavian scarf" or "festival fashion," they strip the fabric of its past. This isn’t appreciation. It’s aesthetic theft.
Appropriation begins when power and privilege collide with erasure. It’s not about wearing a bindi or a dupatta. It’s about wearing it, renaming it, and pretending it never had a cultural root to begin with. That’s the problem, not the adoption, but the active refusal to acknowledge the origin.
A throwback of Bollywood icons in the ’90s, wearing the same scarf-style dresses now repackaged by Western brands
Waist Beads, Yoga, and the Endless List of What’s Been Taken
It’s not just dupattas. The list of appropriated South Asian practices and items is long and growing: waist bands, turmeric skincare, hair oiling, chai, bangles, astrology charts, the clean girl aesthetic, yoga.
The problem isn’t just the usage. It’s the reinvention. These are ancient traditions, domestic rituals, cultural practices rooted in centuries of lived experience. But the Western market packages them in beige packaging and markets them as modern self-care inventions, often without credit or care.
Some argue ignorance isn’t the same as hate. But ignorance, in this context, is a choice. And that choice is steeped in racial politics. East Asian aesthetics are romanticized, curated into minimalism. But South Asian and Black cultural expressions are often exoticized, mocked, or quietly erased.
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Bangles, Waistbands, and the “clean girl” look, all rooted in South Asian tradition
Colonialism Never Ended, It Just Got Trendier
British colonial rule exported the finest textiles and dyes from South Asia to Europe. Now, the same region’s cultural products are extracted, rebranded, and sold back to us under Western names.
Take the case of Afghan coats. A Western traveler stumbled upon them decades ago, found them ‘fascinating,’ and brought them into vogue. The Beatles wore them. Penny Lane wore one in a movie, and suddenly they were named after her.
Afghanistan got forgotten. Today, its women struggle for basic rights, and yet its culture is worn casually by people who don’t even know the country's name. That’s what happens when no one speaks up. Cultural history becomes fashion trivia.
Penny Lane in the Afghan coat from 'Almost Famous'
A 1968 Life magazine cover showcasing the Afghan shaggy coat
The Corporate Complicity
Brands like Oh polly, Reformation, H&M aren’t just "inspired" by South Asian fashion. They are actively exploiting its aesthetics while South Asians face discrimination globally. The timing isn’t random, when South Asian hate crimes rise, South Asian silhouettes rise in trend.
It’s performative. It’s profit-driven. It shows how aesthetics are appreciated only when stripped from the people they belong to. And how power dynamics let Western creators get credit, while the originators are ridiculed!
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Bright and beaded dresses named 'Ibiza-inspired'
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Vibrant lehengas and sarees steeped in South Asian tradition
Why We Need to Keep Speaking Up
Some say it’s not that deep. But if we stay silent now, a few years from today, we might open a catalog and find South Asian identity completely rebranded with zero context. Culture doesn't disappear overnight. It disappears slowly, through neglect, repackaging, and silence.
Speaking up is not about gatekeeping. It’s about remembering. It’s about fighting for credit, for legacy, and for a future where our culture doesn’t need to be sanitized to be accepted.
Because if we stop speaking, who will remember where it all came from?
Fashion is powerful. It can celebrate, elevate, and connect, but it can also exploit. As buyers, creatives, and storytellers, it’s up to us to ask: Who’s profiting from this trend? And who’s being left out of the picture?
The dupatta deserves more than a rebrand.
So do we.